340 APPENDIX. 



Mr. Knox, in his interesting work on " Game-birds and Wild- 

 fowl," has given some good advice about the rearing and preservation 

 of pheasants. I will make some extracts from it, and, I think, many 

 would do well to read the whole book. 



With respect to a pheasantry for procuring eggs, he is of opinion 

 that in March, the time when the cocks begin to fight, the 

 enclosure containing the stock of birds should be divided, by high 

 hurdles, or wattles, into partitions, so that each cock may be told off 

 with three hens into a distinct compartment. He advises that no 

 harem should be greater in a state of confinement. His opportunities 

 for forming a correct judgment have probably been greater than 

 mine ; but I must observe that I have known of ladies, kept in such 

 small seraglios, being worried to death. " The larger the compart- 

 ments," he says, "the better;" "a heap of bushes and a mound of 

 dry sand in each ; " an attendant to visit them once (and but once) a 

 day, to take in the food of "barley, beans, peas, rice, or oats; 

 boiled potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, and Swedish turnips;"* and 

 to remove whatever eggs may have been laid during the preceding 

 twenty-four hours. 



The accidental destruction of the net overhanging Mr. Knox's 

 pheasantry, and the escape of the cocks, led to his ascertaining a 

 fact of much importance; viz. that pinioned hens (one wing ampu- 

 tated at the carpal joint " the wounds soon healed ") kept in an 

 unroofed enclosure, near cover, into which (what are called) " tame- 

 bred pheasants " have been turned, will always attract sufficient 

 mates mates in a more healthy state than confined birds, and that 

 the eggs will be more numerous, and unusually productive. 



I can easily imagine that such matrimonial alliances are sure to be 

 formed wherever the opportunity offers ; and if I were establishing a 

 pheasantry, I would adopt the plan Mr. Knox recommends, unless 

 withheld by the fear that more than one cock might gain admittance 

 to the hens ; for I am aware of facts which incline me to think, that, 

 in such instances, the eggs may be unserviceable. At a connexion's 

 of mine, where the poultry-yard lies close to a copse, hybrid chickens 

 have often been reared the offspring of barn-door hens and cock- 

 pheasants not tame-bred. 



Mr. Knox elsewhere observes, that the hen-pheasants kept in con- 

 finement should be tame-bred; that is, be "birds which have been 

 hatched and reared under domestic hens, as those which are netted, 

 or caught, in a wild state, will always prove inefficient layers." 

 " About the fourth season a hen's oviparous powers begin to decline, 

 although her maternal qualifications, in other respects, do not 

 deteriorate until a much later period. It is, therefore, of consequence 

 to enlist, occasionally, a few recruits, to supply the place of those 

 females who have completed their tliird year, and who then may be 

 set at large in the preserves." Of course, not those birds who have 

 had the fore-hand of a wing amputated. 



* For reasons already given, I think some animal food should be 

 aided. W. N. H. 



